Rowan
by applythepressure
Summary: So as she felt the fire lick her feet, she stared into those terrible faces and swore to herself that she would live and she would make them pay.


A/N: I have decided to respond to the fuckyeahahscoven tumblr's first prompt by focusing on Misty since I feel the Lovecraft quote really describes her community. I can't wait to see how she is going to tie into Zyle and the overarching storyline. It is short, and I apologize, but I am working on another Zyle fic and my cat is just having all the medical problems, so I've been busy. The rowan tree was said to ward off witches.

_**Rowan**_

She never wanted to be born into this.

Her family was batshit crazy. Her whole community, shacked up in old trailers and dilapidated houses in the middle of nowhere in the bayou, was nuts. The Lord this, the Lord that, all day, every fucking day, sermons that went for hours, promising hellfire and brimstone to those who sin and don't repent, who deeply offend the Lord in their wicked ways of sex and drugs and rock 'n roll.

She had bought into it, at one time, when she was young and malleable, not yet fully grown into the courage and stubbornness that would come in full force during her teenage years. She would dutifully dress up in her Sunday best for the morning service, stick by her mother chatting with the other women during the coffee break even though she secretly wanted to play tag and hide and go seek with the boys, and then follow her family back to their seats for the afternoon prayer-dance-shindig-whatever-they-called-it. She just copied what her family did, literally going through the motions without understanding at all what they meant.

Once she got older, though, things started to happen.

When she was about nine or ten, one of the squirrels in their yard had died. There was no obvious cause of death – no bleeding wounds or telltale ribs to show emaciation from the winter – but she could tell it was as dead as a doornail, could feel its cold lifelessness running through her veins like ice water. Her brothers had told her to leave it be and ran off to get help since her father was off running errands and her mother was squeamish around dead animals. She alone was standing guard over this poor dead little thing, and it just broke her heart. She just wished there was something she could do. Maybe she could just lightly pet it, to comfort it, and herself if she was being honest, even though she knew it was dead. It wouldn't hurt to show it some kindness to it, to let its soul, wherever it was, know that someone cared and someone mourned. So despite her brothers' explicit instructions not to touch it, and the temper tantrum she knew her mother would have over scary zoonotic diseases and the like, she reached out and stroked it from head to tail, just once.

And suddenly, it twitched.

She stared, dumbfounded, as its hind legs started to move, its eyes rolled forward again, and then it was up, off like a shot to the nearest tree and soon it had climbed up the branches and was gone from her sight.

What had just happened?

Did she do that?

But she couldn't have, no one had the power to bring back something from the dead, only the Lord could do that.

So was it a miracle? It must have been.

She had witnessed her own miracle. God had made His power manifest through her to bring back this squirrel.

She couldn't wait to tell her brothers once they returned, but as she began telling her story, how she had touched the squirrel and it was alive again, something changed in their faces. It was subtle at first, but she could see it – fear, disbelief, and the worst, something that looked a lot like malevolence.

So she changed her story, saying that it must not have been dead at all, that maybe it was just taking a rest and her touch had only awakened him from a deep sleep, and those faces went away, the light and love she had been so accustomed to seeing in her brothers' faces flowing back like a river refilling an empty pool.

As they turned around and went back to give their mother the good news, she looked back at the spot where the dead squirrel had laid.

Maybe she had dreamt it all.

But when she lay awake that night with nothing to shield her from her thoughts, she was confronted with the truth. She knew that she was the one, not God. That power came from her.

She stopped believing then.

When she was thirteen, her cat had died giving birth to kittens in the backyard. No veterinarians were nearby, and no one really believed in medicine. Her mother would never give her Advil even when in the worst throes of her headaches because "the Lord will heal and provide."

So there she was again, back next to the shed where Esther had given birth to three beautiful kittens, helplessly mewling for milk and love. She had to do something. So she reached out and put her hands on Esther's soft white belly, concentrating.

Maybe it will happen again. She had made it a point to stay away from dead things because she didn't understand how it worked and she didn't know how to explain it away if it happened again. People might believe the tale from a ten year old full of wild musings and churning imagination, but not from a thirteen year old. She should know by then not to tell lies.

And her body and fur grew warm again, her tail flicked, and milk flowed through to her hungry kittens, falling over each other for the best spot at the meal table.

She gasped, but quickly stifled it with a hand over her mouth.

Nobody could know.

It was her secret with the devil.

* * *

She was so fucking stupid, reviving that bird during their dance. She just didn't know what came over her. She just saw it on the ground and she rushed to it, afraid that people would crush it with their stomping feet. And then as soon as she touched it, it revived and flew away.

And the head pastor saw. She saw his face, how it twisted in horror at his recognition of what she had done, and she knew as soon as he knocked on her family's door after the ceremony, as soon as she heard her mother scream, the loud bang as she fell to the floor, her father's cries insisting it isn't true, that his baby girl is not, is not, IS NOT, a witch!

She knew it was over for her.

They sentenced her the next day.

She stood in the middle of their church, surrounded by all those people who boldly preached their devotion to the Lord, who battled over who was the most humble and graceful and blessed, who proclaimed how much love they held in their hearts for each other and for all God's creation. These people looked at her with so much hatred that she couldn't believe they could call themselves good.

"And hereby we find the accused, Misty Day, guilty of witchcraft and consorting with the devil, for which we recommend the punishment of burning at the stake at midnight tonight."

So she was dragged out, kicking and screaming, to the makeshift pyre they had hastily prepared for her.

And as they lit the match, their depravity and godlessness no longer hidden behind hours of prayer and outstretched arms beseeching blessings, she laughed inside, because they really had no idea what she was capable of.

If she could bring back a squirrel or a cat, who was to say she couldn't bring back a human? Who was to say that she couldn't bring back herself?

So as she felt the fire lick her feet, she stared into those terrible faces and swore to herself that she would live and she would make them pay.

"It is you who will die by the flames. I swear it!"

* * *

"Are you serious right now?"

She waited until everyone had left before reviving herself and she sincerely hoped she would never have to do anything like that ever again. Everything hurt and she was very happy that she didn't have a mirror as she was regenerating her skin and eyes and hair. If she looked as bad as she felt, well, she shuddered to think about it.

She had dragged herself to an abandoned house about a mile from where she had been killed. The house had been there for a while, but no one in her community went near there. They would say it was haunted because great sin had been committed there – sometimes they said that a wife had murdered her husband and then drowned her two young children in the swamp, sometimes they said that a man had gone insane there after trying to summon a demon. She didn't care what had happened – as long as she would remain undetected until she could figure something out.

As she could clearly see by the girl with dirty blonde hair and the zombie boy she had dragged along, it seemed that the remaining anonymous plan was out the window.

"Yes, I am. Can you help me?"

"Help you?"

"Well, yeah, as you can see, I have a problem." The girl gestured to the zombie Frankenstein boy she had propped against the rickety wall. He was slightly moving, but she could tell from his eyes that something had gone wrong with the reanimation spell. He was nothing at all like her work.

Her work. That had a nice ring to it.

"Ah, more like a tragedy. What the hell did you do to him?"

"Well, it's a long story. I met him at a frat party a few days ago. Some of his brothers…well, they hurt my friend. Really bad. So she killed them, and him, by accident."

"So?"

The girl gave her an angry glare before turning to check on zombie boy, who was still propped against the wall, his head lolled forward, his face still spotted with blood, but if that was from the, ah, surgery, or something else, she didn't know.

"What do you mean, so?"

"So why did you go to all this trouble to revive him? I can see those sewing jobs, I know that is not his original body. You put a lot of work into him. Why?"

"I just couldn't let him die. He had been kind to me."

"Do you love him?"

The girl looked at her in disbelief.

"Excuse me?"

"Do you love him?"

The girl didn't answer her, which was an answer in and of itself. She sighed as she turned to the boy, who was trying to make some sort of sound, but any words he was trying to say came out jumbled and twisted, so she couldn't understand what he was trying to say. Whatever kind of witch this girl was, she definitely couldn't do what she could.

She could see it in the girl's eyes, the young new love burning like she had just a few nights ago.

She was desperate. She needed her.

It was nice to be needed, nothing at all like the callous disposal that her own community had done to her.

The girl looked at her, the pleading in her eyes unmistakable.

"Will you help me?"

She looked back at her, remembering how she swore vengeance and she smiled.

"I will, if you agree to help me in return."

"Well, we are witches, we have to stick together."

"Glad to hear."

* * *

A/N: Hope y'all enjoyed!


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